YUP... my up-vote shrunk as well. And here I was all happy about being a dolphin at last so that I can dole out decent votes and then they pull this on us when Steem is at rock bottom in value already! How many more Minnows need to abandon hope before they realize that they are killing Steem with these 'new' ideas? Instead of making changes so that more minnows can grow into dolphins (and promote the Steem ecosystem), they make it impossible for a minnow to get ahead.

This is why many of us were railing against HF21. This is the plan, and, in my opinion, disadvantages minnows and dolphins in order to reward whales more greatly. I continue to believe this is a problem. I hope that there will be an outcry against the changes and they will change it back.

The CLRC continues to increase past 20 Steem, slowly converging on (but never, I suppose, actually reaching) a maximum value.

I did some numbers a while back, so these are broad brush.

But practically if we say that a post with 250 Steem payout is pretty close to producing maximum values for each vote then:
* 0 Steem payout gives 50% of the maximum vote values
* 10 Steem payout gives 75% of the maximum
* 20 Steem payout gives 82% of the maximum
* 30 Steem payout gives 87% of the maximum
* 40 Steem payout gives 89% of the maximum
* 250 Steem payout gives 100% of the maximum

If 20 Steem payout gives votes value that are equivalent to HF20 linear then:

* 0 Steem payout gives 61% of linear
* 10 Steem payout gives 90% of linear 
* 20 Steem payout gives 100% of linear
* 30 Steem payout gives 105% of linear
* 40 Steem payout gives 108% of linear
* 250 Steem payout gives 121% of linear

It's a broad indication only; there are lots of assumptions involved.

The CLRC makes it inefficient to vote on posts that will end up with low payouts. The aim being to discourage low value spam posts from extracting rewards without being seen. Unfortunately the level at which it has been set may also dis-incentivise smaller / newer users and also impacts rewarding comments (since each of these cases typically gains small rewards).

Things change and this is where we are at now. Fortunately the Steem environment is very innovative. There is a clear need for methods / behaviours which will allow smaller SP holders to use their votes more efficiently and quality niche / new users to be promoted effectively. It will require some level of aggregation / cooperation but I think that this will happen quite quickly.